Primaeval Update #3: Magic Combat - Ice & Fire news

I’ve spent too much time trying to find a convenient way to integrate the magic combat system with the melee one, my goal was to give the player the ability to use both of magic spells and melee weapons and seamlessly switch between them.

The main problem is that the character wont be able to move during the process of entering the magic state because it will be playing the ritual animation and this will leave player exposed to all sorts of enemy attacks so to tackle that issue I've tried several ideas:

1) Reduce the entering process time by speeding up the ritual animation, didn't help that much as the player still exposed to enemies.

2) protect the player with some kind of magic shield during the entering process. now the player is no longer exposed to enemies but entering process is still slowing down the combat pace.

3) Do some extra animation work and blend the ritual animation with navigation ones to allow the player to move freely during the entering process. by combining all of these ideas I got pretty satisfying result.

So in this Update I show the magic system in action and some other minor improvements

• A magic spell is represented by one or more symbols written on magic scrolls (more details in future updates).
• as a player you have to remember the correct symbol that represents the spell you are willing to cast and draw it quickly to activate that magic spell.
• Magic spell caching feature enables quick spell switching so player can strategically plan their spells combos and attacks.
• Smooth transition between Magic and Melee combat states keeps the flow of the over all combat engagement.
• 2 magic spells Fire and Ice with one symbol for each

More info about the magic system will be revealed in future updates!

• New “belt” system enables back sheathing of secondary weapons and shields,
• Sparks on weapons colliding.
• Dust on blocking weapon with shield.
• New sword shader.
• New slaughter animation.